Wilston station, Newmarket Road. Source: TravellerQLD, Wikimedia Commons
A 17-year-old boy from Burpengary has been charged with murder after the death of a 43-year-old man on Newmarket Road on Brisbane’s North side.
The man’s body was found near Wilston train station by a member of the public at around 2am on Sunday morning.
The teenager was allegedly running along the road, close to the crime scene, two hours before the man’s body was found.
Police officers say the teenager was concealing a 45-centimetre-long knife, which Detective Superintendent Andrew Massingham described as “almost a small machete.”
The victim has not yet been formally identified, but police believe he was a local man who lived in a unit nearby and may have been walking home at the time of the attack.
A large number of police officers and SES volunteers were at the scene of the crime on Monday morning, searching the area for more evidence.
Massingham said, “this is indeed a tragic incident. This man was killed less than a kilometer from his home… The circumstances are not clear as to what led up to it – whether it was a robbery or whether it was a disagreement as to something else, we simply don’t know.”
While the suspected teenage boy was being questioned, a 17-year-old girl approached the officers, claiming she knew the boy. The girl then allegedly assaulted a male police officer and was subsequently charged.
Both teenagers have since been denied police bail and await trial at the Brisbane Children’s Court on a later date.
Massingham said that the two teenagers have provided “limited information.”
Police are currently urging any witnesses to come forward, including anyone in the area with dashcam footage that may have picked up anything between 11pm on Saturday and 2am on Sunday.
So far, local residents have said they heard no disturbances at the time of the attack.
